I cast on Gretel last weekend after picking up another ball of the Rowan Purelife British Breeds yarn from Purlescence Yarns. I was just about to finish the first chart when I realized that I had missed the note 10 rows back that said that the beginning of the row moved by 6 stitches. That would certainly explain why I thought the row after that looked a bit funny. So, I ripped back and am now slowly making my way through the chart.
Meanwhile, I think I’m coming down with a cold.
Nothing like making a stupid mistake in a lace shawl. I was working on Birch while watching an interesting show on The Da Vinci Code Sunday night. I was getting to the end of pattern row 7 of my ninth repeat when I realized that something didn’t look right. I somehow got off pattern on the previous pattern row, so there were yarnovers where there was supposed to be knit stitches, and k2togs where there were supposed to be yarnovers. I’m trying to decide if I want to tink back the 2 rows to fix it, or if I want to try dropping the stitches. I’m leaning towards tinking because there are 4 or 5 leaves that are off… it would probably just be quicker to tink back.
I think my knee is starting to feel a little better, and here I stress the word “little.” The biggest improvement is that when it’s bent I can’t find the sore spot. When it’s straight is still a whole ‘nother story.
In order to distract myself from my slow recovery, I bought shoes. I have a pair of slip on dress casual Clarks that I bought about 5 years ago, if not longer. Due to their age, they are falling apart… literally. There are holes in the soles and the leather upper is separating from the sole. Not shoes to wear on a rainy day as I would be walking around with wet feet. A nice man at the Clarks store in the mall had given me a number to call to get a preaddressed envelope to get my shoes resoled. So, I finally got around to calling only to be told by the person on the other end that they don’t resole ladies shoes. Squeeze me? Upon reflection I decided that while I could take them to a local place, I wasn’t sure that resoling would fix the entire problem (losing 40 lbs has apparently made some of my shoes a bit loose).
Thus, new shoes were the order of the day. I really like Clarks (NAYY), so I hit the store at the mall to see what they had. What they had was crap. Nothing but sandals. Was I asking too much by wanting a simple pair of shoes? Apparently, shoes without any holes, planned or not, are not really available during the summer months (so, why can’t I find swimsuits for sale in August? But, that’s a whole other issue…). So, I checked out Clarks website to see if it was just that one store or the company… sadly, it is the company. But, in my search for Clarks online, I came across places that sell shoes on the Internet. One place had regular Clarks shoes… and a fantastic return policy. I ended up getting Clarks Glenwood. They are so cute. 🙂 They got here yesterday, and I couldn’t be happier to have shoes… real shoes. Now, I have to break them in. Hopefully, this pair will last as long as the last pair… they were great shoes.
The shoes are dead, long live the shoes!
Ugh! I hate silverfish. 🙁 This is why I screamed when I turned my head and saw one crawling towards my head on my pillow last night. Ugh! The Husband valiantly killed it for me, but I was left feeling creepy crawly all night. I would wake up and roll over and go to fluff my pillow, then think twice about even touching the thing. I was so tired when I woke up this morning… not being able to get comfortable due to lack of pillow fluffing and nightmares with insects crawling all over my bed were no help at all. Ugh! Why can’t I find silverfish where they belong — the bathroom?! Why do I always seem to only find them in my bedroom. Most knitters spend their time worrying about moths getting into their wool. I’m spending all my time worrying about my books and photos. Ugh! And now my head… *creepy crawly shivers*
Of course, on the topic of bugs, I saw a small moth in my living room a couple days ago and ending up smooshing it when it landed on the Husband’s cheek… he just loved that. So, between seeing one small moth, then another in my bedroom yesterday afternoon that I didn’t manage to catch, and a posting in the Livejournal knitting community about infestations, I’m worrying about my wool. I did a cursory scan of my fleeces and such and everything looked untouched. So, of course, now I’m thinking, “Wait! I saw it in my bedroom… where my nice silk and wool clothing is… where the Husband’s expensive tux is… Ack!”
And I used to think that spiders were my biggest worry… *sigh*
Sadly, I have not managed any lace knitting recently, even with the long weekend. I have, however, been working on the Ribby Cardi. I am almost done with the armhole shaping on the back. I did both front over the weekend. Unfortunately, I need to redo the right front. Apparently, I’m a moron when it comes to patterns that say “Right armhole shaping: Reverse left armhole shaping.” Instead of doing a k2tog at the end of the RS rows, I did it at the beginning of the WS rows, which made a weird looking decrease rib thingy. The plan has become for me to finish the back, then rip back the right front and do it again. At least this can be said to be a learning experience, right?
Scooter
This morning I was doing my best impression of an unhappy camper. “Why?” you ask. Well, I got up, picked out a decent outfit, and spent 15 minutes putting on make-up (I only wear make-up for special occasions and when I know there’ll be pictures). I looked pretty cute, too. Then, I pulled up the DMV website to get directions to the branch I was going to… only to discover that they’re all closed today for Caesar Chavez Day. *GAH!* Between the wasted time getting ready and the paper cut I got under a fingernail when I was checking to make sure my checkbook was in my purse, I was not happy. I wanted to scream… I cried instead… stupid hormones. So, tomorrow morning I get to do it all again for the pleasure of trying to get my motorcycle permit. That means another day of nervous waiting. I know I should be nervous, the majority of the questions are ridiculously easy (the only ones I might have problems with are that ones that specifically refer to motocycle things like clutches and gears). No what I’m nervous about is absoluately stupid… I’m afraid I’m going to be made to take the auto written test and not pass it. See? Stupid. But these are the kinds of things that get stuck in my head and continue to rattle around. This is why I started knitting in the first place.
Bookbookbook
I have canceled my order with amazon. It still hadn’t shipped and I kind of doubt it would have shipped tomorrow. A call was placed to a local Barnes & Noble, where a very nice bookseller has put my name on a copy, and it is currently waiting for me to go and pick it up. Guess what my first stop on my way home from work will be… go on guess. *grin* If all goes well, I will be in possession of the bookbookbook by this evening. (It shouldn’t be this difficult to get a newly released book.)
Wool Peddler’s Shawl
I finally say down a couple nights ago to try and figure out what was going on with the Wool Peddler’s Shawl. I frogged back to the setup row, and I thought I figured out the problem when I found a dropped stitch about 6 rows down (the nice thing about the Peace Fleece is the stitches don’t run if you drop them). I used a crochet hook to bring it up, recounted my stitches, 231 the correct number according to the pattern. Start the lace again. Row 1 no problems, everything appeared to fall where it belonged. Row 2 had the same exact issue as before… the pattern wasn’t lining up correctly. It’s a 10 st lace pattern… I have 10 sts… I try to knit Row 2’s 10 sts (K1, P9) and it’s off by a stitch… I recounted 10 sts at least 5 times.. I even looked at the chart. Have I lost all capacity to count? That would be hard luck on a knitter, I think. I have no idea what it is I’m doing wrong. I might give it another go tonight… but if I’m still not getting it, it’s definitely going to the LYS on Saturday.